Members of Child Concern at the meet in Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, May 20: Visually challenged children between six and 14 years of age will soon find a new address.

Child Concern, a non-government organisation (NGO) that works for children’s issues, has come up with the plan to provide free food and lodging facilities to such children.

Divulging the plan at the annual general meeting of the NGO, Shivaji Kumar, the managing director of Child Concern, said: “The central government has selected us as the state nodal agency centre (Snac) to work for the differently abled people.”

Snac came into effect under the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995. It was decided that every state would have its disabled commission for the welfare of the physically challenged people.

Kumar said: “We are happy that after working hard for so many years, Child Concern will be working for the disabled people of Bihar.”

“We are going to provide free residential facilities to visually challenged children. The facilities will include food and lodging. We will not take any money from the parents for this,” the managing director said, adding that the residential facilities would be available in 36 districts of the state.

The annual calendar for 2010-11 was also presented on the occasion. The calendar mentioned 41 programmes including the summer camp that started on May 17 and would conclude on May 22. The calendar also includes 10 state-level inter-school painting competition that is scheduled to start from June 6 in Patna, health check-up camps for the disabled in June in Gaya, 10 Bihar state-level disabled art and craft exhibition in July. The calendar also includes street plays, music and rangoli competitions.

The NGO also presented its annual reports, audited budget at the annual general meeting. The general manager announced the newly elected members of the working committee of Child Concern.

Members of the NGO, including Sameer Kumar Mahaseth, chairman, Vakil Prasad Gupta, vice-chairman, Sulekha Kumari, the general secretary, were also present on the occasion.